OLYMPIA, WA – Washington U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse says he won’t back the sweeping tax cut and spending bill his fellow Republicans are trying to push through Congress if it includes controversial provisions to sell off federal public land.
Newhouse and four other Republicans in the U.S. House stated their opposition to the potential land sales in a Thursday letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson.
“If a provision to sell public lands is in the bill that reaches the House floor, we will be forced to vote no,” says the letter, which was also signed by Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, Rep. Cliff Bentz, R-Oregon, and Rep. David Valadao, R-Calif.
Republicans hold a narrow 220-212 majority in the House, and their “One Big Beautiful Bill” squeaked through that chamber by just a single vote in May.
Before it did, Republicans scrapped a proposal to make 500,000 acres of public land in Nevada and Utah available for sale.
The sweeping budget legislation is now under consideration in the Senate, where Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, introduced a scaled-up version of the land sale proposal earlier this month. It would’ve made millions of acres of U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management property in Washington and other states eligible for sale.
Earlier this week, the nonpartisan Senate parliamentarian ruled the language of Lee’s original proposition was out of order. However, Lee has said he wants to press ahead with a narrower version of the plan that would still put thousands of acres of Bureau of Land Management property up for sale in 11 Western states, including Washington.
Newhouse and the four other Republicans said in their letter to Johnson that they “generally accept changes to the bill that may be made by the Senate.” But they added: “We cannot accept the sale of federal lands that Senator Lee seeks.”
They said efforts by Lee to add a land sale proposal into the bill “would be a grave mistake, unforced error, and poison pill that will cause the bill to fail should it come to the House floor.”
A spokesman for Newhouse’s office said Friday the congressman did not have any comment on the issue beyond what was said in the letter.
A copy of the letter that U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse and four other House Republicans sent to House Speaker Mike Johnson on June 26, 2025.
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